


A Cruel Demon's Fate

by SventheCrusader



Series: High Fantasy Booking [2]
Category: WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: (barely but still worth pointing out), Other, cw: blood, heel bayley, in which bayley discovers the pitfalls of heroism and the satisfaction of ruthlessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 16:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19403974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SventheCrusader/pseuds/SventheCrusader
Summary: Sometimes, all it takes is the one thing, the one very final straw, to push someone over the edge. Bayley never once fathomed that she could have a breaking point, but then Alexa Bliss opened her eyes.





	A Cruel Demon's Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Evidently, this WWE fanfic kick I've been on has up and decided it's here to stay for a while, so have a spur-of-the-moment sequel to Aftermath.
> 
> Yes, the title is 100% Within Temptation, and yes, the song in question was exactly what I was listening to when I conceptualized this thing.

**The Victor.**

When Bayley left the ring - breathing still heavy, hair still loose and sweat-dampened, and (most crucially) her fingers clutched tight around the white leather of her championship belt - nothing hurt.

Yes, for the first time in what felt like Bayley’s entire career, nothing hurt at all. She supposed there should be tragedy in that, in the fact that it took hitting her breaking point for her to _finally_ be free of the hurt and betrayal which had dominated her past five years in the ring, but now Bayley found in that reality only freedom. Only release. Only...

_(triumph)_

In the past, Bayley had been pushed and tested time and time again. She had trusted the wrong people, had been abandoned by those she thought were the right people, and had been just flat-out unlucky. But even at the heights of her misery and frustration - even, she realized, when she and Sasha had come close to reaching their own breaking point the year before - Bayley had never once fathomed the notion that she could have a breaking point to begin with. The idea of some final straw finally pushing her over the edge

 _(making you go_ **_berserk_ ** _)_

had been utterly foreign to her, as unthinkable a thing as the idea that she might one day not have Sasha by her side any longer, as the idea that Becky might someday grow tired of seeing Charlotte steal her opportunities, as...  
  
_(as the idea of that sniveling rat behind you finally making a friend)_

But all of those things had come to bear, hadn’t they, and now so had this. Alexa Bliss had pushed and prodded, had tried every moral fiber in Bayley’s being, until she had finally managed to make her _snap._

_(until she finally opened your eyes)_

If Bayley had to pinpoint exactly what had finally tipped her over, she supposed it was the kendo stick. As soon as her eyes had fallen upon it, weighted in Bliss' hands, Bayley’s mind had gone back to another match, another kendo stick, another _boldfaced humiliation_ two years prior, two years almost to the very day, and she had simply...blanked. Her mind, her vision, her very being had clouded over with a black mist of rage so enormous and permeating that it left everything else behind it: the fans, the ring, the downed referee, even the thought of retaining her title. All Bayley had been able to see, in that three-minute space of dead bloodlust, was Alexa Bliss.

Alexa Bliss, who had cost Bayley her first title.

Alexa Bliss, who had humiliated her almost irreparably the instant she had gone back for it.

Alexa Bliss, who had mustered the audacity to try and do it all again with Bayley’s greatest accomplishment of all, with the title which had made her the first ever woman to be bestowed the rank of Grand Slam Champion.

As Bayley stalked her way down the ramp

_(and haven’t you earned the right to stalk, don’t you deserve to be the predator for once)_

she flicked her eyes to one side, taking note of the on-site medical staff all but storming the ring. Bayley could tell they were giving her a wide berth, and she supposed that was perfectly natural after what they

_(and Cross, and the people around you, and the whole world)_

had witnessed her do to Alexa Bliss. In her periphery, Bayley could see flecks of blood splashed across her right shoulder, no doubt that of Alexa Bliss and no doubt the tangible result of the Diving Elbow which had ended the match. When Bayley had first toed Bliss onto her back to set her up for that final blow, the visual of the blood slowly bubbling out of the smaller woman’s mouth with every labored exhalation of breath had almost given Bayley pause. But then she had remembered the heft of the kendo stick in her hand

_(broken in half across that cheating weasel’s ribs like a snapping twig)_

had once more remembered the humiliation two years prior, and had come back to her senses. After all, what good was there in leaving unfinished a job that was otherwise perfectly well-done?

A few mere feet away from the exit, Bayley finally paused, turning her sights all the way around to the ring behind her. The medical team were in there, working to undo the damage she had done, and the sight of what she was leaving behind drove all the way home what Bayley had known the instant that kendo stick had snapped in half in her hands: after so long, and after so much pain, she was finally done with Alexa Bliss for good. The self-professed Goddess was many things - a liar, a cheater, a manipulator and consummate betrayer - but she was far from stupid, and pursuing Bayley again after tonight would be the utter pinnacle of stupidity.

_(if she even gets up at all, and who really knows)_

Bayley supposed the thought should have made her feel exaltation, or at least some sort of joy. Instead, what came up was a thought as cold and dead as the rage which had finally finished off the most tenacious of Bayley’s demons, paraphrased almost perfectly from something she had growled at Sasha during one of their skirmishes: _You ain’t shit, Bliss. Neither is your little minion._

The din of the crowd around her finally registered to her ears - those who weren’t outright booing Bayley for the justice she had exacted instead chattering softly in stunned disbelief - and mentally she appended, _And neither are any of you people, after all._

Bayley turned away from them. She turned away from all the people who had ever called her a hero, ever _made_ her a hero, and disappeared into the darkness beneath the Titantron.

Alexa Bliss truly had opened her eyes, and Bayley supposed she owed her thanks for that much, at least. It had taken two years to really sink in, but at long last Bayley had learned the lesson.

“Hero,” it turned out, was just another word for “stepping stone”.

_(in the shattered remains of the light of day,  
_ _on the wings of darkness, she's returned to stay.)_


End file.
